France Day 7

We started out in Bourges this morning after spending one night at the modern Hotel Angleterre.

Nick and I packed up and headed downstairs after taking a couple of very long, hot showers. We loaded our bags on the tour bus and then walked to the open air market in Bourges. Produce, fish and seafood, spices, meats of all kinds, breads, flowers, and cheeses were all around us at the market. It was absolutely amazing!



We were having a picnic lunch that day, so we paired off into four teams: one for meat, one for cheese, one for pickles and miscellaneous, and one for desserts. Each team had a budget and also had to pick up a specific wine to go with their course. We teamed up with Marie, Marianne, Jared, and Alicia. Jared pointed out that, since the cop was on our team, we should logically have desserts (haha, another doughnut joke!). Nick and I chose to find the wine (Sancerre), which we were able to do in the market because it is locally produced. We also spent a lot of time drooling over the cheeses and pastries. The goat cheese (or chévre-pronounced chev) from this region is beyond amazing and SO delicious! Don't let the mold turn you off to it. Mold makes it better, believe me.

By the end of our excursion, we had a bottle of wine, a baguette, and some goat cheese-the quintessential French lunch!

While we were at the market, we saw a guy with two golden retrievers, which made me miss Gus so much. Then Nick yelled, "Jack!" And, lo and behold, there's a female version of our late Cookie right there in the market in Bourges. I cried and took three pictures of her.

After the market, we had some time to kill so we walked around Bourges again.

Here's one of the Roman walls I talked about in day 6. This one actually has a clear demarcation line where it was destroyed and rebuilt, about two-thirds of the way down and sloping up:

We were looking for a tote bag and umbrella, which we didn't find, but we did run into Jared and Alicia who took us to the boulangerie that used to be a whorehouse. We took some delicious pictures there and bought some treats for later.


Lunch was in the gardens by the cathedral.

The gardens were still in bloom and were a beautiful background for lunch.



This is the actual park where we ate. The picnic was spread over the benches.

The spread was very impressive. I loaded up on local strawberries, bread, and cheese. There were also a few interesting meats we decided to try. Come to find out that one was a rabbit pâté (YUM!) and the other was . . . (drumroll) HORSE! That's right, I ate horse. And it wasn't bad, but it wasn't my favorite either. Nick really liked it, of course. The rabbit pâté was delicious and I went back for seconds. My favorite part of the meal was the goat cheese-one wedge in particular, but I have no clue as to its name. Damnit. I probably couldn't get it in the states anyway, since locally produced in France often means it's also only enjoyed locally. Here's the wrapper from my amazing cheese:

In addition to the food, we had four tastings of wine. I liked the first one the best.

Nick liked all of them. I guess we're turning into winos! Lunch was a great experience in many ways. First off, it forced us to interact with local people, which was really fun. The lady we bought our wine from spoke no English, but was so sweet and got as excited as we did when we were able to communicate with her. It felt very Amazing Race to us. Secondly, it gave us the opportunity to try new and different foods and wines, most all of which were local or specific to the region. Finally, we had French pastries for dessert. How can you go wrong?

After lunch, our Bourges tour guide came back to take us on a quick tour of the cathedral, which was, among other historically significant events, where Eleanor of Aquitaine was crowned.


It was like being in Notre Dame without the crowds. Check out the groin vaults! Apparently St. Etienne's Cathedral has been falling apart for a while now, so the architects went wrong somewhere in the design.

Funny moment: The look on Nick's face when a man asked him to remove his hat after we'd been in the cathedral for twenty minutes. Poor little Catholic boy was mortified!

We talked a lot about the stained glass windows in the cathedral and learned the stories from many of them.


It was sunny and beautiful outside, which made prisms of color on the ground from the glass. It was beautiful. We have enjoyed Bourges so much. I'm so glad we got a chance to visit this amazing place!

At 1pm we got back on the bus and headed for Chambord (pronounced shan-bor). Arnaud put on some French music for us to listen to, which was okay at times. Other times it sounded like wailing and made it extra hard to nap. One more experience in culture for the books!

As we were coming up the long drive to Chambord, we crossed into the huge game reserve surrounding the chateau. It's the largest fenced game reserve in the world. We actually saw two boars, which is extremely rare. They also have deer and stags, ground animals, and fowl. When we finally came out of the forest, we could see one side of the chateau and it was huge! Chambord has 400 rooms with 365 fireplaces. It was built by Francois I as a hunting lodge.

Over the course of his entire reign he only spent about 3 months cumulative here. What a massive expense for such a short amount of time! Since then the chateau has changed hands a number of times, as it was often given as a gift to nobility. During World War II, the art and treasures from the Louvre were stored here for a short time. It was also the inspiration for the Beast's castle in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Now it is quite a tourist attraction.

Arnaud pointed us in the direction of the must-see parts of the chateau because we only had 2 hours to experience the whole thing (not enough time, believe me!). Overall, it is a huge, drafty place that is incredibly difficult to heat. It's beautiful in its architecture, but it's definitely a cold place, meaning it doesn't look lived-in and the majority of it isn't furnished. One of the exceptions was Francois I's bedroom. That's him in the painting. I imagine he was pretty cocky in his masculinity (pun intended-apparently he was quite the womanizer).

Here's a view of one of the ceilings in a hallway.

We spent a short amount of time inside checking out a few of the rooms and the amazing view from the terrace.

We also saw the double spiral staircase they think was designed by Leonardo da Vinci, who was brought to France by Francois I. We walked around the roof and took some beautiful pictures of the chimneys and architecture.

The real beauty of the chateau lies outside in the building itself. The massive number of chimneys from the 365 fireplaces sprout up all over the roof, the grounds surrounding the place, and it's sheer massive size made for some great pictures.

For me, the history of the place was my favorite part. It's a hunting lodge, which is a fun idea itself, built by a young king who simply wanted it (and got it-what a great way to show off his power to his enemy the Emperor Charles V). Then his court moved away from the area and he couldn't really use the lodge anymore. I wonder if that made him sad, or at least disappointed.

After we left Chambord, we headed to Amboise to check into the Hotel Bellevue, a very Rick Steves place to stay.

From the lobby it looked okay and we thought Arnaud was just being snobby when he said it was really "rustic." But then we saw our room. You can barely turn around in the bathroom and the toilet flushes by pulling up on a knob, which then crashes back down. Everyone on the lower floors hears everything water related, which is very loud. My shower was hand-held and the bed is tiny and practically on the ground. It's one of those places that makes you laugh out loud, but not really in a bad way. It was an experience. And, while cramped, it was very clean, the breakfast was great, and the staff was wonderful.

Dinner was at L'Alliance with the group and was three courses. I had a goat cheese salad, a blah piece of cod, and the chocolate mousse. Nick had the same, with the exception of his main course, which was guinea fowl, and he really liked it. This meal included a glass of wine, so by the end of the meal, our group of 29 (including Arnaud, Annie, and Matt-the drivers) were all so loud it was overwhelming in the small space. We were having so much fun! By the time the meal was over, it was about 10pm and we were exhausted! I know, shocking.